Cotton warehouse compliance report updated

After receiving weekly data since January on “Bales Made Available for Shipment” reports from USDA, the National Cotton Council has revamped its “U.S. Warehouses Not Complying with Mandatory Reporting” page on its Web site at http://www.cotton.org/tech/flow/whsnotrept.cfm.

The page, updated weekly with USDA’s information, shows the number of warehouses with Cotton Storage Agreements (CSA) in each state/region which fail to report the warehouse’s weekly cotton flow and the number of strikes incurred by warehouses.

Earlier in the year, USDA’s Storage Contract Branch Chief Steve Searcy issued a letter reminding warehouse operators of the new required mandatory weekly reporting of the warehouse’s cotton flow. The requirement is part of Amendment 2 to the CSA, which all warehouse operators with CSAs were requested to sign Dec. 15, 2006.

The letter noted a three-strike system: failure to submit a weekly report will result in a telephone call from that USDA office; a second failure to submit will result in a letter of reprimand; and failure to submit three weekly reports within a 12-month period will result in the removal of a warehouse from the Commodity Credit Corp. list of approved warehouses.

To be reinstated, a warehouse operator would have to submit all missing cotton flow reports and pay a reinstatement fee.